Women in the United States Senate

There have been 46 women in the United States Senate since the establishment of that body in 1789.[1] The first woman senator, Rebecca Felton, served in 1922 (for a single day), but the first woman elected to the Senate was Hattie Caraway in 1932. Fourteen of the women who have served were appointed; seven of those were appointed to succeed their deceased husbands. Currently, the 114th Congress has 20 female senators out of 100, the same number as in the 113th Congress.[2] The 115th Congress will have 21 female senators out of 100.

By the 111th Congress (2009–11), the number of women senators had increased to 17, including four Republicans and 13 Democrats.

Throughout most of the Senate's history, that legislative chamber has been almost entirely male. Until 1920, few women ran for the Senate. Until the 1990s, very few were elected. This paucity of women was due to many factors, including the lack of women's suffrage in many states until ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, women's limited access to higher education until the mid-1900s, public perceptions of gender roles, and barriers to women's advancement such as sex discrimination, which still plays a factor in their limited numbers today.

The first woman in the Senate was Rebecca Latimer Felton who served for only one day in 1922. Hattie Caraway of Arkansas became the first woman to win election to the Senate, in 1932. No women served from 1922 to 1931, 1945 to 1947, and 1973 to 1978. Since 1978, there has always been at least one woman in the Senate.

In 2012, there was a second "Year of the Woman" with the election of five women and the re-election of six women. This beat the record of four new female senators from 1992 and set the record of five new women and eleven female senators in one Senate class. The five new women were Democrat Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Republican Deb Fischer of Nebraska, Democrat Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Democrat Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, and Democrat Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Oddly enough, the driving force behind the addition of four of the senators elected was one of the original senators from 1992, Patty Murray, who led the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which recruited Baldwin, Heitkamp, Hirono, and Warren, along with several other candidates who did not win.

Since then, many more women in both the Democratic and Republican parties have campaigned for the Senate, and several have been elected. Twenty are currently serving in the 114th Congress (2015–16).

In 2016, a record 15 women were their party's nominee for Senate, with 12 being truly competitive. Louisiana also had a female senatorial candidate, but she did not make the run-off.

Cumulatively, 34 female senators have been Democrats, while 17 have been Republicans. Of the 21 female senators serving in the 115th Congress starting January 2017, 16 are Democrats and 5 are Republicans.

In January 2013, the number of serving women senators increased to 20: 14 Democrats and 6 Republicans. Republican Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison (Texas) and Olympia Snowe (Maine) did not seek re-election in 2012, while five new women senators were elected: Republican Deb Fischer (Nebraska) and Democrats Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin), Heidi Heitkamp (North Dakota), Mazie Hirono (Hawaii) and Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts).[4] In the 2014 election the total number of women in the Senate remained at 20, but the partisan makeup changed, as Democratic Senators Kay Hagan (North Carolina) and Mary Landrieu (Louisiana) were defeated for re-election while Republicans Shelley Moore Capito (West Virginia) and Joni Ernst (Iowa) were newly elected.

For three states, California, Washington, and New Hampshire, both senators are women. California's two senators (Boxer and Feinstein) were the first two women to be elected to the U.S. Senate in the same election (in 1992) from the same state. Ten female senators had previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives - a distinction long held by only Margaret Chase Smith - Sens. Mikulski, Boxer, Snowe, Lincoln, Stabenow, Cantwell, Gillibrand, Baldwin, Hirono and Moore Capito.

Of the two seats that changed hands from Republican to Democrat both were won by women, Duckworth and Hassan.

For three states, California, Washington, and New Hampshire, both senators are women. Eleven female senators had previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives - a distinction long held by only Margaret Chase Smith - Sens. Mikulski, Boxer, Snowe, Lincoln, Stabenow, Cantwell, Gillibrand, Baldwin, Hirono, Moore Capito, and Duckworth.

Before 2001, numerically speaking, the most common way for a woman to ascend to the U.S. Senate was to have been appointed there following the death or resignation of a husband or father who previously held the seat. An example is Muriel Humphrey (D-MN), the widow of former senator and Vice PresidentHubert Humphrey; she was appointed to fill his seat until a special election was held (in which she did not run). However, with the election of three women in 2000, the balance shifted: More women have now entered service as a senator by winning their seats outright than by being appointed to the body.[citation needed]

Recent examples of selection include Jean Carnahan and Lisa Murkowski. In 2000, Jean Carnahan (D-MO) was appointed to fill the Senate seat won by her recently deceased husband, Mel Carnahan. Carnahan—even though dead—defeated the incumbent senator, John Ashcroft. Carnahan's widow was named to fill his seat by Missouri GovernorRoger Wilson until a special election was held. However, she lost the subsequent 2002 election to fill out the rest of the six-year term. In 2002, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) was appointed by her father Alaska GovernorFrank Murkowski, who had resigned from the Senate to become governor, to serve the remaining two years of his term. Lisa Murkowski defeated former governor Tony Knowles in her reelection bid in 2004.

Another famous name is Nancy Landon Kassebaum, the daughter of former Kansas governor and one-time presidential candidate Alf Landon. After retiring from the Senate, she married former Senator Howard Baker (R-TN). Kassebaum has the distinction of being the first female elected senator who did not succeed her husband in Congress (Margaret Chase Smith was only elected to the Senate after succeeding her husband to his House seat). At the time of her retirement in 1997, Kassebaum was the second longest serving female senator, after Smith (though now that five other women senators have since served longer tenures, she is now seventh).

Senator Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME) holds several distinctions for women in the U.S. Congress: She served in the Senate for 24 years, longer than any other female senator until Barbara Mikulski eclipsed her record in 2011, Dianne Feinstein eclipsed it in 2016 and Patty Murray passed it in 2017; she was the first woman ever elected to both the U.S. House and Senate (she was first elected to the House in 1940 after the unexpected death of her husband, who himself was a member of the House of Representatives, and she served there for eight years before winning the Senate seat by a landslide); she was the first woman to hold a Senate Leadership position; and she also won her 1960 race for Senate in the nation's first ever race pitting two women against each other for a Senate seat.

Joni Ernst (R-IA) is the first female veteran to serve in the Senate. Two years later Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) joined Ernst as a fellow veteran and also as the first Double Amputee in the Senate.

The first time two female senators from the same state served concurrently were Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer (both D-CA), both elected in 1992, with Feinstein taking office that same year (as the result of a special election) and Boxer taking office in 1993 until 2016 when Boxer retired and Feinstein was joined by Kamala Harris. For a brief time, there were two female senators from Kansas serving concurrently, when Nancy Kassebaum and Sheila Frahm briefly served together after Frahm's appointment in 1996; Frahm did not win election to the seat and left office later the same year. Maine Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins served concurrently from 1997, when Collins entered office, to 2013, when Snowe retired. In Washington Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell have also served concurrently since 2001, when Cantwell entered office. Upon the opening of the 112th Congress, New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen was joined by newly elected Republican Kelly Ayotte, making the first female tandem senators that do not belong to the same party. In 2016 Maggie Hassan defeated Kelly Ayotte to make the sixth pair of female senators with Jeanne Shaheen in two pairs.

This is a map of states that have been represented by women in the United States Senate.

Democrat(s)

Republican(s)

Both a Democrat and a Republican

Eight Democratic women senators appear at the 2008 Democratic Convention in Denver. It has become a tradition at Democratic conventions for incumbent women senators to appear on opening night.

Twenty-seven states have been represented by female senators. In 2009, North Carolina became the first state to have been represented by female senators of both parties, and the first to have a female senator succeeded by a female senator from the other party. In 2011, New Hampshire became the second state to be represented by female senators from both parties, and the first to have female senators of both parties serving concurrently.